News:: Eiji Aonuma chimes in on his top three Zelda games

Eiji Aonuma has been the series producer (and occasional director) for The Legend of Zelda since 2000's Majora's Mask. He has taken Zelda in a lot of different directions and produced some of the greatest games for each respective console. To say his impact on the series is limited would be just plain wrong, so hearing what he believes are the best of the bunch is intriguing.

In an interview with Game Informer, Aonuma sat down to quickly go over his top three Zelda titles and one that he thinks is underrated. I'm a little surprised at his number-one choice, but he does explain his reasoning as being more sentimental than from a designer/gamer perspective.

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News:: Failed 'Super Retro Squad' Kickstarter returns as 'Glitch Strikers'

When Jay Pavlina created Super Mario Bros. Crossover in 2010, he had a viral hit on his hand. The popular fan game tweaked Nintendo's classic platformer to allow characters from other retro games to take Mario's place. Two years later, Pavlina gambled big on the crossover gameplay mechanic and lost, successfully crowdfunding $53,000 for an original game called Super Retro Squad before announcing in 2014 that the game was on indefinite hiatus. The project was assumed dead, with backers facing endless silence in the face of refund requests. Today, however, the project returned as Glitch Strikers, a new title based on the original concept that actually looks like it might come out. It even has a trailer.

Source: Exploding Rabbit

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News:: Deal: 23% off Berserk and the Band of the Hawk for PC

PC gamers are getting Koei Tecmo's newest action game with some discount love thanks to the title making its way on Green Man Gaming's catalog. On Steam, the just-released game is at 10% off with a drop to $54. Not bad, but the best Berserk and the Band of the Hawk discount for the PC Steam digital copy is at GMG with a 23% price drop to $45.99.

• Berserk and the Band of the Hawk (Steam) — $45.99  (list price $60)
• Must login or create an account to see the full discount

As the title is now released, keys are delivered instantly after purchase, so you can begin the 16GB download (takes up about 20GB after installation).

The hack-'n'-slash RPG is also getting free DLC on day one, an "exclusive" content pack. Head over to Steam and download "Doodle-Face Pirate" costume for Schierke, "The White Swordsman" for Guts, and more.

If you enjoy the Warriors type of action or if you're a big Berserk fan and can't wait to punch Femto in the face, this may be a title worth picking up. Early reviews for the PC version are showing fairly good with 168 out of 195 being positive on Steam.

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News:: Sci-fi parkour platformer Super Cloudbuilt coming to PC and consoles

2014's Cloudbuilt struck me as conceptually interesting game that would get on my nerves as the difficulty ratcheted up, and as a result, it kind of just came and went. Or so I thought!

Coilworks and Double Eleven are bringing the speedrunning parkour shooter title back with Super Cloudbuilt, a touched-up version for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One coming this summer.

This is the definitive release for returning players, with "all previous DLC levels" included and "enhanced graphics, UI, and optimized gameplay," but it's also meant to be more intuitive for new folks like me.

I'm still not sure I have the patience for this, but I'll be tempted to chance it.

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News:: Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy may not be a PS4 exclusive

There seems to be some confusion brewing about whether or not the Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy is going to remain exclusive to Sony's platform. In a tweet from the official PlayStation Ireland Twitter account today, Sony bluntly stated that the game will remain exclusive to PS4. You can see the image captured in this NeoGAF thread. Later on in the day, though, is where the story becomes interesting.

The original tweet has since been deleted and has been replaced with a different answer. According to Sony, Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy is simply coming to PS4 and PS4 Pro first.

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News:: Oculus exec warns developers about going all-in on VR right now

The annual DICE Summit is taking place in Las Vegas right now, which means that video game executives from all over the world are gathered together to talk shop. These are the industry's most influential decision-makers, and you best believe that whenever a technology is as emergent as virtual reality has been, it's going to be a major topic of discussion.

One such conversation between Oculus head of content Jason Rubin and Insomniac Games' CEO Ted Price took place in front of a live audience. As detailed by GamesIndustry International, the two went back and forth about virtual reality and the disparity between what the market expected and what it produced. No one's denying that VR didn't exactly set the world on fire in its first year.

Rubin has some thoughts about what VR needs to do better. The three big ones are: The devices need to be more comfortable, less heavy, and have a better lenses; the games need to come up in quality; and the price needs to come down. There's a lot of balancing to be done because a lot of these needs are directly conflicting. VR has some stuff to figure out.

But, Rubin gave a piece of frank advice for developers who are inclined to bet big on VR: Don't. Not yet anyway. Rubin said "Anytime a dev goes out of business, that's a bad thing for the industry. Going all-in on VR right now, unless you have a good business plan, is not a very good thing to do."

If you're interested in the business side of games, their conversation is worth reading. It's not every day that we get to see a major developer ask a platform-holder how it's going to make things better for them. The short of it is that, for the time being at least, developers still need to act cautiously. VR hasn't yet proven itself as a platform that is entirely dependable. 

Oculus: Going all-in on VR not a good plan for most devs [GamesIndustry International]

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News:: Look out for Titanfall 2's Live Fire mode tomorrow

It's been some time since Respawn first started talking about Live Fire, its pilot-only six-on-six mode, but I have to commend today's release date announcement relative to the release itself.

The free update drops tomorrow, February 23 with "two mode-specific Live Fire maps [Stacks and Meadows], Featured Playlists, a new execution, an additional Coliseum map, mixtape-style matchmaking, balance patches, and more." As a bonus, there's going to be double XP from Thursday through Monday, but it only applies to Live Fire mode. That should keep the playlist popping.

Good time to get back in (or maybe you never even left in the first place?).

Frontier News Network 02.22.2017: Live Fire release date and Double XP [Titanfall]

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News:: Here's what The Elder Scrolls Online's take on Morrowind looks like

The Elder Scrolls is venturing back to Vvardenfell for the first time since 2002. Well, you could technically see it off in the distance in Skyrim, but that's not a proper visit. Flying over Wyoming doesn't mean you've been to Wyoming.

No, come June 6, The Elder Scrolls Online is going back to the province of Morrowind, and more specifically the island of Vvardenfell. We've known about this for a month now, but we haven't actually gotten to really check out Morrowind. The trailer that was released in January focused mostly on one combat scenario in a confined location.

This video serves as a much better overview. It's full of quick shots offering brief glimpses at the area's gorgeous vistas, often juxtaposed against its unique monstrosities. There's a lot in Morrowind that wants to kill you. You know what they say: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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News:: TowerFall creator's new game Celeste headed to Switch

As you may already know, good-game-maker Matt Thorson is making another game, one that I hope and think will also be good. It's a "hardcore" platformer called Celeste. The last time we spoke about it, the release platforms weren't yet known, but there's good news on that front. Celeste is coming to Nintendo Switch -- as well as Steam and PlayStation 4, as previously announced -- later this year.

If I wasn't on board with the game before today, I would be now having seen this trailer. Good lord!

Matt Thorson [Twitter]

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News:: Cards Against Humanity is getting a small Mass Effect expansion for $1

Mass Effect is about to leave its mark on the Cards Against Humanity universe. In the lead-up to next month's Andromeda release, BioWare and Cards Against Humanity have teamed up to create a small 14-card expansion pack.

We haven't been told what any of the cards say, but they'll probably be edgy. The URL for the expansion is totallyfuckablealiens.com. Because Mass Effect is a game where you can fuck aliens. Funny enough, the URL that BioWare is sharing on its public channels is masseffectpack.com (which redirects to Totally Fuckable Aliens).

Even though the contents will be a surprise, it's not much of a gamble to pick this up. It's going for just $1, which seems like a reasonable price for 14 cards. Cards Against Humanity says that this is a limited run that it'll sell until it's gone.

While you decide if this is the expansion for you, please enjoy this picture of Thane (I think) puking, Garrus and FemShep making out, and Tali drinking from a swirly straw:

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News:: Double Fine picks up Ooblets, a real cute game about farming and creature collecting

Ooblets... Ooblets. Where do I know that name from? Ah, right! It was listed among Patrick's top 42 indie games to watch for in 2017 where he alluringly summed it up as "Pokémon meets Harvest Moon."

In the game, you'll raise and battle creatures. You'll have a house to expand and a town to explore, with folks to chat up. You'll even be able to run a shop, if you'd like. And best of all, there's lots of dancing.

It all looks charming as heck, and I'm not the only one who thinks so: Double Fine is now publishing Ooblets. The game is looking at a 2018 release, and it's primed to launch on PC and Xbox One.

"We're going to keep doing what we've been doing, but we now have a lot more support from people who know what they're doing, so we'll hopefully be avoiding a lot of dumb mistakes we were otherwise planning on making," said creator Rebecca Cordingley. "More generally, we're now a bit less afraid of failure since so many people believe in us. We're so thankful to have you all alongside us on this weird journey."

Our biggest news yet [Ooblets]

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News:: 'EVE Online' is crowdsourcing the search for real exoplanets

EVE Online players will help scientists look for other planets from the comfort of their computer desks later this year. The game's developer, CCP Games, is teaming up with Massively Multiplayer Online Science (MMOS), the University of Reykjavik and the University of Geneva to crowdsource space exploration within EVE's virtual universe.

Source: CCP Games

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News:: In a week of poor sales, For Honor stumbles to the top

Sales numbers haven't been this low since I start covering these. There are likely a variety of factors involved, such as For Honor being the only significant new release this past week. It was the top seller in Japan, even if 40,000 is not exactly killing it. Maybe they're burned out on samurai after Nioh.

Just one more of these until we get to see numbers for the Nintendo Switch.

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News:: The Games with Gold lineup for March 2017 is...okay?

I'm a little shocked at the game selection for Games with Gold next month. Usually Microsoft kills it in terms of big-name titles or critically acclaimed indie hits. This month, though, we're getting a bunch of nonsense on the Xbox One and an inferior version of a fan favorite shooter. I can't say much about Heavy Weapon, but I know PopCap Games made it, so it probably isn't too bad.

For Xbox One users, you'll be able to get Evolve: Ultimate Edition from March 16 to April 15 and Layers of Fear from March 1 to March 31. For 360 users, you'll get Borderlands 2 from March 1 to March 15 and Heavy Weapon from March 16 to March 31. Remember, those 360 titles are backward compatible, so it isn't a total loss on the Xbox One front.

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News:: Square Enix may have accidentally announced NieR: Automata's PC release date

The highly anticipated NieR: Automata will release on PlayStation 4 in North America on March 7, 2017. It will also be available on PC via Steam, but the release date has yet to be announced, or has it? Square Enix released a new trailer titled Arsenal of Elegant Destruction that shows off combat, and originally displayed a March 10, 2017 release date for PC. They have since removed the video and re-uploaded it with only the PS4 release date displayed.

Gematsu has the original video uploaded here. Just why they removed the date is still unknown. The European PS4 release date is March 10, so its possible that they made a mistake regarding these dates. Of course it's possible that it will indeed be released on March 10 and they didn't want us to know yet, but if so why not announce it this close to release?

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News:: 'Mass Effect' gets raunchy in its new Cards Against Humanity pack

If your favorite part about Mass Effect is making jokes about the game's wide-array of sexual paring options, you can skip Andromeda -- Cards Against Humanity has announced a limited run Mass Effect expansion. Well, expansion is a bit of an overstatement. The terrible person's favorite card game is selling 14 Mass Effect themed cards for $1 -- and yes, most of them are poking fun at the series history of letting the player hook up with pretty much everyone.

Source: Cards Against Humanity

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News:: This hour-and-a-half Nioh speedrun isn't messing around

Nioh is still new. There are untold builds, routes, and exploits left for the community to discover. And yet here we already are, two weeks after release, with a 1:36:51 "All Main Missions" run by Distortion2.

There's a lot of running and weaving around enemies, of course, but even that is easier said than done for a beefy, occasionally maze-y game like this so soon after launch. If you're still feeling out Nioh, you'll get at least two takeaways from this video: 1) the kusarigama in high stance is heavenly and 2) magic is absurdly powerful, and it's worth taking the time to read through and plot out its skill upgrades.

With this impressive early attempt out of the way, I look forward to seeing "SL1" equivalent runs.

[Via reddit]

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News:: 'Overwatch' streamer destroys his in-game imposter

Brian St. James is called Kephrii in the competitive Overwatch scene, and he's known as the highest ranked Widowmaker player in the world. He recently ran into a hacker impersonating his gamer tag and using cheats, but instead of getting mad, the real Kephrii got even. While streaming the match on YouTube, St. James showed off his skills by consistently killing the fake Kephrii, who played Widowmaker, then Tracer (two different character classes), on the opposing team.

Via: Kotaku

Source: YouTube

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News:: Persona 5 still knows how to keep it weird in the Velvet Room

The Velvet Room is probably one of my favorite recurring elements in recent Persona games. Even if they have their own casts and distinct styles, I love having that one strange location to return to that ties it all together. In case you haven't heard, it's coming back in Persona 5, and based on this footage, with a vengeance.

As a reminder, the Velvet Room is a place that exists "between dream and reality," and you can end up there while dozing off. It's a lot like the Black and White Lodges from Twin Peaks -- but it's not nearly as dangerous as the former, and you can alter your personas there (much like demons in SMT proper).

Or you can avoid any sort of info and go into Persona 5 blind -- as I've said many times, I'm not your dad.

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News:: AMD returns to high-end gaming CPUs with Ryzen 7

AMD has largely ceded the performance processor space to Intel in recent years. You typically get one of its chips inside a budget PC, not an all-out gaming rig. At last, though, you might have reason to get excited: AMD is launching Ryzen 7, a desktop CPU line based on its much-ballyhooed Zen architecture. The key is a dramatic improvement in the number of instructions the chip can handle at once. A Ryzen 7 CPU can do 52 percent more work every cycle than a similarly-clocked predecessor thanks to a newer 14-nanometer manufacturing process, five times the bandwidth and some overdue architectural upgrades. This is AMD's first processor with simultaneous multithreading (Hyper-Threading in Intel speak), so each core can execute two code paths at the same time.

Source: AMD

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News:: Swordquest, the ill-fated Atari series, is returning in comic form

Swordquest is one of the more interesting pieces of video game history to come out of the Atari 2600 era. Atari had massive plans to make a multi-game franchise that spun an intense narrative design that far outclassed the limitations of its home console. Along with creating this new world came the chance for players to win $150,000 and a bunch of replica weapons from the individual games in the series.

Sadly, the video game crash of 1983 ruined Atari's plans and the scheduled fourth game in the series, Airworld, never happened. Fans that were looking forward to the end of the competition have desperately searched for any kind of clues of the prizes or even game code, but that has basically yielded nothing.

It looks like Swordquest isn't quite finished as Dynamite Entertainment is looking to sort of reboot the series in comic form. The new Swordquest comic is going to follow a fan playing the original games and looking to eventually win the contest that Atari had planned.

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News:: The next 'Futurama' mobile game has the show's creators aboard

Futurama continues to be the animated franchise that just won't die. Fox and developer TinyCo (a divison of Jam City) announced today that they're working on another mobile game from the series -- Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow -- which will notably have creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen involved. Even better, TinyCo is also working with the show's original voice actors, animators (Rough Draft Studio) and some of its writers. We still don't know what the game is actually about, but it's expected to land this summer as a free title. The developers will also be revealing more during a Facebook Live chat this afternoon.

Source: Fox

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News:: Go grab some free NieR: Automata PS4 themes with your Japanese PSN account

NieR: Automata is coming. Right in the middle of a brand new console launch, a new Zelda game, and off the heels of another open world game in the form of Horizon Zero Dawn. It's...a rough launch to say the least.

Based on my time with a few preview builds I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, so maybe it will have longer legs, especially when the mysterious PC version drops. Either way, you can get pumped for it now if you have a Japanese PSN account by grabbing two free PS4 themes off the store.

They're basically the same, showcasing the same grey/white theme with two different colored robots, but I dig how the aesthetic matches the in-game menus to a tee. March is going to be a busy month!

NeiR [PSN]

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News:: Watch Eiji Aonuma unbox Zelda: Breath of the Wild Limited Edition

I rushed to a GameStop the morning that the special editions for Zelda: Breath of the Wild were announced, and found that my store only had three of them -- I was third in line, but the guy in front of me "didn't like Zelda." Phew!

If you didn't manage to get one (either the $100 version or the $130 edition featured here), you can watch Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma unbox it for you -- or more specifically, the European rendition of the box. Similar to other Zelda special editions it's pretty snazzy, but that limited run gold Wiimote for Skyward Sword was something else.

Like a lot of other Japanese developers that seem to love what they do, Aonuma is amazing. He even does the "dun dun dun dun" chest open jingle. It's almost worth watching just for that!

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News:: Free Bretonnia DLC touches down in Total War: Warhammer next week

Next up for Total Warhammer players is the game's biggest free update yet.

On Tuesday, February 28, the sprawling strategy title gets the Bretonnia Race Pack DLC, which grants access to the group in the Grand Campaign and expands its roster for custom skirmishes.

I hope you didn't watch this trailer in a dark room, because if so, the toxic-green knight may have melted your eyeballs. If your vision is still in working order, the DLC's Steam listing is packed with details.

Fun fact: Bretonnia isn't just the name of a faction -- it's also what I'm going to start calling Brett. If you don't hear from me again in the next 24 hours, assume that he did not take this goof very well.

Total War: Warhammer - Bretonnia [Steam]

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News:: Nintendo of France expects the Switch to eclipse the Wii U by year's end

Talk about a sibling rivalry of Cain and Abel proportions, but the projections for the Switch versus the Wii U are some real salting the Earth type stuff.

Nintendo of France's deputy general manager Philippe Lavoue recently came out and said that they expect the Switch to beat out the Wii U's lifetime sales as of this year. He brings up sales numbers for France, noting that while Mario Kart Wii hit three million sold in that region, Mario Kart 8 on Wii U only hit 350,000 -- so there's potential for the Switch to smash that. According to Vavoue, the pre-orders for the Wii U version of Zelda: Breath of the Wild "aren't even close" to Switch. The hope is there, now they just have to execute.

All of this is adding up to an exciting future where Nintendo might actually be a key console player again, but it's also making me sad. If only Nintendo didn't squander the Wii U, and screw up their marketing out of the gate (that confusing, awful name for starters). RIP, you great console, you.

Nintendo France [Gamekult via Nintendo Everything]

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News:: Dead Rising 4 is coming to Steam this summer

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News:: Final Fantasy VII Remake voice acting 'nearly complete'

Oh right, modern games have voice acting. For whatever reason it didn't hit me that the Final Fantasy VII Remake will be fully voiced, but of course it will. That voice acting is nearly complete according to Producer Yoshinori Kitase, who suggests Cloud will not sound as he does in Advent Children, "Fans may have the image of the Cloud from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, but since this is the ‘prime’ Cloud from before Advent Children, the performance may feel fresh."

It's not clear whether this refers to the entire game or just the first episode. Most think it's referring to the first episode which would make more sense. He is also likely referring to the Japanese recording, not the English one. Hopefully it'll feature dual audio.

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